The Weekend - “Frustrated by Grace” (Matthew 20:1-16)

We’re looking at the stories of Jesus again this week in the sermon. This week’s story is about grace. And the interesting thing about it is that as amazing as grace is, it makes a lot of people frustrated and angry. 

I’m one of them. I’m not always frustrated by grace or even mostly frustrated by it, but there are times I am. 

I’m frustrated by grace whenever someone apparently receives grace from God that I don’t think deserves it.

And it’s that words “grace” and “deserves,” in the previous sentence, that’s the problem. 

Jesus is a master of getting us to see how messed up our thinking is by provoking us. 

This week’s story is a classic. Hardly anybody reads it without getting angry. And then, when we get angry, we realize we’re arguing with the Lord of the universe. We think, “Maybe my fundamental understanding of how life works is off.’ And then Jesus does his best work on us—he begins to transform the way we think about him and life and religion and spirituality and basically everything.

Our weekend is not just about the sermon. Every element of our worship helps be transformed in the way we think. We sing truth to each other and we sing words of praise to God and we pray and we fellowship and through that, if we truly engage, we are shaped by God. 

Yes, it’s cold this weekend. Big deal. We’re worshipping gathered today and tomorrow. Watching the podcast later this week just doesn’t cut it.